Okay guys, before I begin, I gotta give you a fair warning. This story is absolutely true unfortunately. It is also very long. It goes back to my childhood, but it wasn’t as terrifying until very recently. Now I am completely lost in fear. I am an adult man, logical and intelligent (or I’d like to believe so) sitting in my bed, scared shitless right now, goosebumps all over my body and tears of horror in my eyes. I ask for your help in explaining this fucking horrifying thing. Caution: you’ll notice that I curse quite a bit.
I want you to know that what you read from now on is the situation perceived by my mind. I like to think that I am a very rational person and I haven’t been able to explain these occurrences in any natural way.
Since my mom got a new job, she started making new friends. It is common in our country that friends come to each other’s houses for a cup of coffee, cake, gossip and whatnot. Few weeks into her new job, my mom made friends with this woman, Rose. She would come maybe twice a week and they’d sit around the coffee table on our balcony and just talk. One day, when I was 17, I was at the balcony with them. I’m not sure why I was there, but knowing me, I probably ran out of internet hours (back in a day we bought internet monthly per hour in my country) and was bored as fuck. So we’re sitting there, they’re gossiping about who knows what, and mom gets up to go get some cake she had baked recently. I remained sitting at the table with Rose and that’s when my life changed forever. Rose was a good looking woman. She was about 5’6”, skinny, long black hair, pearly white teeth. Attractive woman overall. So anyways, I am sitting there with her, and she turns to me. She has this creepy grin on her face; bright red lipstick with bright white teeth underneath are just making it look more scary. Her head is moving slowly, almost as if she became a puppet. She says something in the lowest tone possible, certainly not loud enough for me to understand. “Excuse me?” I say, still not being scared, just a bit weirded out.
“You ready to go now?” She said this in a voice of a child, I kid you not. Like maybe an 8 year old girl.
Grin is still there. She mustered those words through her teeth, never opening the jaw.
“What?” I ask, starting to get scared.
“You ready?” The same thing again. Only this time, she pulls out an orange out of her purse. That’s it, she just took the orange out, and held it there. Didn’t offer it, didn’t eat it herself, just held the fucking thing.
At that point, I was getting scared as fuck. Thankfully, my mom came with the cake. Rose, almost as if someone pushed a button on a remote control, switched back to her normal self, putting the orange back into her purse without my mom noticing. I left the balcony creeped out, but I was 17 so I brushed it off quickly.
That night, I had trouble sleeping. My room is on the first floor and my window is at a maybe 5’ height, so I kept looking at it praying not to see some scary monster. I would turn in my bed constantly and look at the window maybe every 5 minutes. It was getting late and I started to doze off, but decided to look into the window one last time. And there she fucking was. Standing in the fucking window. Rose. Just standing, looking directly at me (moonlight was bright enough for me to see), with the same grin on her face. Lipstick was red as ever, and teeth were whither than ever. I was paralyzed with fear. I often imagined what I’d do in situations like these, and I always had an escape plan for any hypothetical I threw at myself. But now, when this friend of my mother’s was staring at me through my window at 4am, just smiling, I was motionless. My mouth got dry, I got goosebumps (have them now as I type this), and I swear it became freezing in my room, probably just the way the body reacts to shock. I finally gathered the courage to get up. I started walking towards the door. Hear head was turning with me. Slowly. With the grin still there. Again, it was as if she were a puppet. I wanted to scream for my parents, but knowing how tense they are, I decided not to cause panic just yet. There had to be some rational explanation, right? For fuck knows what reason, I decided to walk to the window and ask her what the fuck her problem was. I made two slow steps towards it and froze. I froze because she moved. You know what her movement was? Taking the orange out of her purse. Does anyone know what the record time is for having goosebumps? Because they sure as shit aren’t going away. Anyways, after being terrified for a minute, I decide to go on. I am a big guy and figured I’d be able to fight her off if push comes to shove. My windows pull up in order to open. I pull it open maybe some 10 inches and stop. She’s not moving, just holding the fucking orange and looking at me with the scariest grin you’ll ever see. I stand there. She stands there. Then, she starts bending. But every move she makes is so slow, so mechanical. She’s bending so she can reach the open part of the window. I’m horrified. She pushes her head through it (just enough space for her head to go through).
“You go with me now?” As she’s saying that, in her 8 year old voice, her hand is making its way through the crack, holding an orange. What do I to? What you’d do. Fucking run. I run out of my room, screaming for my dad. My dad being a light sleeper, he jumps out of his bed and screams back at me asking what the hell is going on. All I can muster to say is “Rose…window.” While dad is putting his pants on, I run back to my room, wanting Rose to be there so he can see that I am not crazy. You know how in horror movies the person you saw is gone by the time witnesses come? Yea well similar thing happened, except I caught Rose leaving. There is a house some 100 yards away from mine, and it had one of those motion activated lights (lots of crime back home). I saw the light turn on, and a glimpse of Rose disappearing behind that house. By the time dad ran into my room, she was gone. After much talking, he decided that it was just a nightmare and told me to call him only if someone physically comes into my room. “You and your fucking imagination” he said walking away. Needless to say, I got exactly zero hours of sleep that night.
Nothing happened in the next few months. Rose would still come to visit my mom, but I’d make sure I wasn’t there. Fuck that. As in every teenager’s life, so many things were happening around me and I forgot about the Rose incident. Then one day, I was spending my afternoon browsing internet (years before Reddit unfortunately). I got pretty hungry so as any spoiled child, I yelled from my room to see if my mom would come. She didn’t. Oh well tough luck, I have to go to the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. Kitchen in our house is connected to the living room, but you can’t see the living room until you’re at least in the middle of the kitchen. So I open the kitchen and walk in. I freeze. There it is, right there on the kitchen table. An orange. Immediate thought of that creepy night. Rose is here. I am still motionless in my spot. Few seconds later, I realize how stupid I am for relating a common piece of fruit to a crazy window stalker. So I walk towards the table, wanting to put the orange back in the fruit cabinet. I grab the thing and hear the voice behind me: “You will have to come with me soon, you know.” Child’s voice. It’s Rose. I produce some kind of noise resembling scared pig about to get slaughtered. Lightning fast, I turn around and there she is, standing in the middle of the living room. Just standing there, same grin on her face, same lipstick on her lips, teeth white as ever. Only she started tilting her head to the left a bit, in slow motion. I remember it as if it happened yesterday: her long black hair falling down her shoulders, white summer dress, bright red shoes to match her lipstick. I forgot to mention that she was very pale. Even in the summer, she seemed to not be friends with the sun. This added to creepiness. There’s this woman who already scared the shit out of me once, standing alone in the middle of my living room, pale as a ghost, bright red lipstick and shoes, tilting her head to the side, speaking in child’s voice. And then, and fucking then, she takes an orange out of her purse. Takes it out slowly, and looks at me, as if she wants me to have it. Just as my self-defense mode is about to take over and I either run away or tackle the crazy bitch, my mom walks in. I know it didn’t happen, but it seemed like my mom brought the light into the room. I released a breath of relief. Rose, of course, went back to her “normal” self. They were about to go for a walk and my mom was getting ready in her room while she was pulling her grudge shit on me.
Since my parents wouldn’t believe anything I was saying about her, I wasn’t sure what to do. Only thing I could do at that age is nothing, I suppose. But I swore I’d punch that woman should she ever come close to me again.
A year or so had passed without any incidents and I was getting ready to go to the United States to study in college. Since I was going to play basketball there, I had to prepare for it. I spent summer away from home, working out in a training camp in a town about 40 miles from my city. During the last night of the camp, the last incident happened. My roommate had left the camp the day before and I had the room to myself. I was very excited about going to America in few days and had trouble sleeping. My room had a beautiful balcony (I was on the third floor of a hotel). Since it was warm, I decided to sit in the chair on the balcony for a while. I walked out, sat down, and immediately regretted it.
“It is really time to come now.”
I nearly shit myself. I mean, it’s been a while since I last heard that voice, but something like that stays with you forever. I turned my head to the right, and Rose was standing on the fence of a balcony of the room next to mine. Mind you, not standing on the balcony, or sitting at the table, but standing on the fence. How she was balancing I don’t know. Balcony was at least 50 feet from the ground. And she was holding the orange. Fucking orange. Only this time, orange seemed to have been somewhat rotten, not nearly as bright as the first three times. I was scared that she would attempt to jump over to my balcony, as there was only few feet distance between them. I was also scared she’d die in attempt to do so and I’d be blamed somehow. I had no idea what the fuck was going on.
“It really is time, you know.” She said it in that child like voice, never opening her jaw, her teeth forever clenched together, and lipstick the color of fresh blood. She seemed even paler this time, and her head was tilted to the left even more. She wore red shoes.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I screamed in desperation, angry that this woman is causing me so much distress, but also hoping that someone would hear me and come witness this crazy bitch’s harassment.
“I only want you to go where you belong.” She said that, and again, never opened her teeth. She only sprang her hand more towards me, almost offering me that semi rotten orange.
“Fuck you, you crazy bitch.” I opened the door of my room, and as I was walking in, I heard: “You will come.”
I slammed the door, deciding this woman was schizophrenic. I would’ve probably flipped out more, but I was leaving the continent in few days, at which point I was safe. Wrong.
I know I have a wall of fucking text but this is the shortest version of these creepy events. I came to the US, and have been here for 7 years now. I forgot about the incidents and went on with my life. Only time I ever thought about Rose was when talking to my mom who said that since I left, her friendship with the crazy bitch fell apart. I was glad. Last 7 years were the best of my life. I got bachelor’s and master’s degrees, I got a wonderful girlfriend, you know, life’s good, man. But then. But fucking then. I am a big technology geek, and I love Apple (don’t shoot me down for this please). So, it was Last Friday, September 21st, the release of iPhone 5. I am in front of the store with about 50 other people. I am maybe 15th in line. It’s raining. It’s cold. I’ve been there for about 4 hours now. Doors finally open. We start moving in slowly. I look across the street and instantly stop. People run into my back, I can hear complaining. But it’s all bouncing off of me. Across the street, I see a woman in a white dress, head tilted, holding something orange-ish. Grin on her face. Lipstick so bright red, I can see it from across the street. I can’t move. Someone from far in the back pushes, causing me to fall. While I gather myself, I see the woman disappearing behind the corner. I remain sitting on the ground. It was Rose. It was her, I swear. I sit there for few minutes, get myself together, and walk in the store. No phones left. I decide to walk across the street. And there it was. At the place where she was standing now only sits a mushed, terribly rotten orange. That’s it. Just a rotten orange. I started crying. All memories came back. I thought that my whole life would constitute of being stalked by some maniac. And how did she find me anyways? I spent next few hours in a nearby coffee shop, drinking tea and reasoning how this could be logically possible. I kept no secret from my friends and family about my whereabouts. Did she stalk my Facebook? My friends? Did she travel here to harm me? What the fuck is her deal? Answering no questions I asked myself, I went home, deciding to keep it all to myself. My girlfriend noticed something was wrong with me for the next few days, but didn’t push it. I figured it was all a fluke, my mind playing tricks because I was up all night before that morning. Plus, it was raining. How could I see that well? And that orange, well that was just a coincidence. I convinced myself that I was just making it all up.
So today, a letter came. I get a lot of mail, so it’s not that out of the ordinary. But there was this envelope with no return address. I opened it and was immediately shocked. I was holding a Polaroid picture. In it, there was me, standing in line in front of the store last Friday. Only the picture was taken by a person behind me. It was taken at the moment I was looking across the street. I can tell because I could see the horror on my face. On the back of the photo, there were few words written with a black pen:
“you come with me, NOW.”
I dropped the picture and started crying like a baby. Like really crying my ass off. My girlfriend found me in our room, curled up on bed, still crying. She was terrified that maybe someone close to us had died, as she’s never seen me let a single tear before. I had to tell her. I started telling her the story, leaving most details out, so I can get to the point quicker. As I was talking, she was getting more and more pale. She never said a word. I finished my story and she was pale as ghost, not moving. Then she asked. She asked a fucking question that honestly caused me to almost faint. She said: “This woman, did she happen, to… um, hold an orange?” I froze, she started crying like I’ve never seen her cry before.
We had a long talk that night, and her story would require another wall of text. Honestly, I am fucking tired from typing this much and am pretty sure nobody will be willing to read this much. I am also lost. Terrified. Confused. But if someone does read this, I’ll write the rest. I’ll write in hope that someone can offer a solution, and an answer maybe. Currently, we are both scared as fuck, not knowing what to do next. Police is an option, but what do we tell them? I don’t know man, I am fucking scared for mine and her well being. Help me.
Update: Well guys, shit. Don’t know what to tell you. It happened again today. Except I didn’t see her. Let me give you a quick rundown of events:
- 9:00 am – I go to the local police station with my girlfriend. We tell them all that we know and show them the Polaroid. Although quite friendly, they say they really can’t do much other than maybe file a restraining order against the person who probably (their words) isn’t even in the country. They think I mistook her for someone else and the picture, well they said it was probably a prank. They did take the photo and open a file about it, just in case it escalates. It did.
- 1:00 pm – We arrived in town where I saw her. Went to the location, there was nothing there. Don’t know what the hell I expected anyways. We stayed there for a while.
- 6:30 pm – Arriving home. Front door of the house is open, but this is not uncommon as we live with 5 other roommates. We go upstairs to our room. Our room is open. That is unheard of as we always make sure we lock it. And our landlord is the only other person who has the key. I yell asking if someone is there, no response. Also, no roommates are in the house, it seems. We walk in. We freeze. Our room is decently small, constitutes of two queen size beds put together and a little dresser and that’s about it. So what did we see? Pillows are all on our dresser. Towels on the bed.Our sheet is taken off the bed and put on the floor. It is spread out. In the center of it is an orange cut in two halves with a little peel next to it. My laptop is facing the door and is playing the same song on repeat. My laptop was turned off before I left and was also password protected. The song playing is my favorite from childhood, “Africa” by Toto. My desktop background was changed to one picture from my childhood that I didn’t even have in the computer.
- 7:00 pm – We call the police, they arrive 15 minutes later. I take about 5 pics of the mess just before they come. They say they’ll start an investigation, but claim that it’s still not “serious enough” for fingerprints and stuff.
- 8:30 pm – They leave and tell us to call should anything happen again, and also advise us to stay with friends if possible.
We spent next few hours just talking, man. Trying to figure it out. We’re exhausted both mentally and physically. I am going to Skype with my mom tomorrow and see if she knows anything. I will type up my gf’s story tonight, but may post it in the morning if I don’t finish it all in time. I will include photos I took, I promise you that much.
Holy fuck, this shit is happening to me.
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Credit To – Milos Bogetic
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